tated--"it always seems to me as if
the God of battles and the beauty of holiness must both have filled the
man's mind who wrote it." He stopped, surprised at his own lack of
reserve, at the freedom with which, to this friend of an hour, he spoke
his inmost heart.

"I know," the stranger said gently. There was silence for a moment, and
then the wonderful low tones, beautiful, clear, beyond any voice Miles
had ever heard, began again, and it was as if the great sweet notes of
an organ whispered the words:

God shall charge His angel legions
Watch and ward o'er thee to keep;
Though thou walk through hostile regions,
Though in desert wilds thou sleep.

"Great Heavens!" gasped Miles. "How could you know I meant that? Why,
this is marvellous--why, this"--he stared, speechless, at the dim
outlines of the face which he had never seen before to-night, but which
seemed to him already familiar and dear beyond all reason. As he gazed
the tall figure rose, lightly towering above him. "Look!" he said, and
Miles was on his feet. In the east, beyond the long sweep of the
prairie, was a faint blush against the blackness; already threads of
broken light, of pale darkness, stirred through the pall of the air; the
dawn was at hand.

"We must saddle," Miles said, "and be off. Where is your horse
picketed?" he demanded again.

But the strange young man stood still; and now his arm was stretched
pointing. "Look," he said again, and Miles followed the direction with
his eyes.

From the way he had come, in that fast-growing glow at the edge of the
sky, sharp against the mist of the little river, crept slowly half a
dozen pin points, and Miles, watching their tiny movement, knew that
they were ponies bearing Indian braves. He turned hotly to his
companion.

"It's your fault," he said. "If I'd had my way we'd have ridden from
here an hour ago. Now here we are caught like rats in a trap; and who's
to do my work and save Thornton's troop--who's to save them--God!" The
name was a prayer, not an oath.

"Yes," said the quiet voice at his side, "God,"--and for a second there
was a silence that was like an Amen.

Quickly, without a word, Miles turned and began to saddle. Then suddenly
as he pulled at the girth, he stopped. "It's no use," he said. "We can't
get away except over the rise, and they'll see us there"; he nodded at
the hill which rose beyond the camping ground three hundred yards away,
and stretched in a lon